Le Moyne basketball starts its conference tourney at home this afternoon

Syracuse, N.Y. -- His club had just stepped up in class and had paid for it, losing to Big Brother at the Carrier Dome 97-64 after getting abused in the paint by 30 points, pounded on the glass by 15 rebounds and blitzed from the field where it was outshot 56 percent to 39 percent.

But back there in early November as Patrick Beilein sat in his bus seat on the 20-minute ride to Le Moyne College's chummy campus, a few driving miles and a basketball world away, he was ... well, he was happy.

"We lost by 33, and I know that sounds bad," he recalled the other day of that exhibition affair with the Syracuse University Orange, a heavyweight that had stepped in with a middleweight. "But I was smiling the whole way home. It was, 'I think we've got a chance.' The way we moved the ball. The way the guys stuck together. I just saw something."

Beilein's eyes did not deceive because his Dolphins, after splashing back into their own Division II pool, proceeded to go 21-5 and finish first in the Northeast-10 Conference's Southwest Division. As such, they are now ranked No. 1 in the NCAA East Region and No. 24 in the nation.

All this, a year after finishing 10-17 and adrift.

"I think the biggest things that changed were the team chemistry and the culture," Beilein, the freshly-anointed NE10 Coach of the Year (and never mind that he won't be 34 until next month), said as he sat in his Le Moyne office. "I think we wanted to win, but we didn't know how to win."

Apparently, the Dolphins -- nine of whom are averaging between 13.3-29.7 minutes per game, eight of whom are averaging between 6.7-11.8 points per game, six of whom are grabbing between 2.9-5.0 rebounds per game ... all of whom believe that a balled fist can be more persuasive than so many extended fingers -- are quick learners.

They have, after all, more doubled their wins while cutting their losses by some 70 percent from one season to the next, are ranked in the Top 25 for the first time in more than seven years and can yet break the school record (now standing at 24) for victories in a campaign.

"We had the mentality that we went 10-17 last season and we just had to get better," explained Russell Sangster, Le Moyne's junior guard who last week was named the NE10's Defensive Player of the Year. "We're very competitive. We treat every practice like it's a game. It's been great to see the results are better than last season. And better than we expected, actually."

They're bound, Sangster and his mates are, for the NE10's conference tournament, but they'll only have to trot from their locker room to get there because the opener of that competition will be played on Ted Grant Court inside the Henninger Athletic Center this afternoon beginning at 3 o'clock against the University of New Haven.

Should Le Moyne pass that test, it will face its next tournament foe later in the week, again inside its own building. A triumph in that would vault the Dolphins into the NE10's tournament title game at a site to be determined. And beyond that? The 64-team Division II national championship tournament would beckon.

And, yeah, it would be safe to suggest that this Le Moyne bunch -- that has won 17 of its last 19 starts and is rated No. 8 among Division II's 302 squads in fewest points allowed (64.8) -- has pretty much stared from afar at that event.

"Every day before and after our practices," divulged Sangster (and for a couple of months those practices began at 6 in the morning), "we always say, 'NCAAs on three!' We always wanted to win the NE10. I mean, we wanted to win it last year when we were 10-17. But our main goal is to get to the NCAA Tournament and create some havoc in there."

That may come across as a bit heady for an outfit that began this campaign with a 33-point loss, even if it was to Big Brother and didn't count. But, again, some things aren't always as they seem.

And as Beilein -- who scored 1,001 points at West Virginia and went to two Sweet 16s and one Elite Eight with the Mountaineers ... who played pro ball for a couple of years overseas ... who worked in some basketball capacity or another at Michigan and Dartmouth and Bradley, and with the Utah Jazz ... and who served as the head coach at West Virginia Wesleyan before taking the Le Moyne job in 2015 -- has been around the basketball block, he knows that objects in the mirror can be closer than they appear.

"I remember our game against Syracuse in my first year," said Beilein of the Dolphins' 97-58 loss to the Orange in November of '15. "After that one I was thinking, 'This is going to be a long season.' But this time, what I saw was different.

"The guys began to see things in practice and in the film sessions. For them it was, like, 'OK, this is going to work. Stay with the program. We have a great chance to be good.' Did I expect us to go 21-5? No. But confidence is a heck of a thing. Once it gets going it's hard to stop."